Nbc Executive Defends `I Witness Video` Before Its Critics

July 25, 1992|By Bruce Christian, Cox News Service.

LOS ANGELES — How far NBC will go came under intense scrutiny recently, as TV critics questioned the network`s support of ``I Witness Video.`` In its debut season, the home-video-driven program showed a pregnant woman leaping from a multistory building that was on fire, and a police officer who, having been shot at, returned fire and killed one of his assailants.

Television critics gathered for the annual summer TV press tour wanted to know whether NBC was ready to stoop to the level suggested in the cynical motion picture ``Network.``

Entertainment President Warren Littlefield said no, but he also defended

``I Witness Video.``

``I regret it`s not a show that`s real popular with you,`` Littlefield said to the critics. ``But it`s been popular with the audience.

``Am I proud of the show? Let me say this: I think the producers do a very good job producing that show, and I think that the show can be successful on our lineup.``

Littlefield added that when a videotape is sent in, research is done to ensure authenticity.

``We are not doing murders on the show,`` he insisted. ``We`re doing a number of dramatic stories. We`re looking at the research, and we`re finding the audience does not have what I take as the kind of response you have to the program.``

``Quite frankly, it`s working very well,`` he said. ``We think (the producers) have taken some very difficult subjects and produced them well.``

Littlefield insisted that nothing on the program has been offensive and that it is well within NBC`s guidelines of what would make an acceptable broadcast show.

``And the audience has found that, so we will continue with `I Witness Video,` `` Littlefield said.

To critics` concerns regarding the impact the program might have on children, Littlefield suggested the reporters were trying to make an issue out of nothing.

``Of course we think about that in everything we do,`` Littlefield said.

``We work with broadcast standards in terms of monitoring what we do.

``There is nothing that invites a child audience into that program,`` he said.

A father himself, he added, ``I couldn`t pay my (7-year-old) son to sit down in front of it. There`s no interest whatsoever. And there wouldn`t be. There`s no reason why it would be.``

Littlefield said other alternatives would occupy a young person`s viewing interests.

``There are, as you know, more than 30 channel choices (in the average TV market), so that`s not the issue here,`` he said. He added that NBC research has shown no indication that young people watch the program.